OUR TEAM

Alexander Belcredi has been working in the pharmaceutical space for over a decade. He spent nine years at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where he was part of the global Healthcare team, focusing on Pharma and Medtech. While at BCG, Alexander became acutely aware of the urgent need to develop alternatives to antibiotics and was fascinated by the role that phage therapy can play. In 2017, he co-founded PhagoMed Biopharma GmbH, a biotech company developing phage-based pharmaceuticals to treat bacterial infections. At PhagoMed he serves as a CEO and focuses on the Business & Finance responsibilities. Alexander holds an MA in Modern History and Economics from the University of St. Andrews as well as an MBA from INSEAD.

Lorenzo has long been fascinated by the many examples of phages effectively treating bacterial infections. And by how under-exploited this extremely abundant natural resource is. Lorenzo spent the last 9 years at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and was a Senior Principal in his latest role.
Lorenzo has advised the top Biopharmaceutical companies, on how to improve their quality and efficiency of production. Earlier in his career he worked at Sanofi Aventis in lead optimization after high-throughput screening. Lorenzo co-founded PhagoMed in 2017 and currently serves as CEO with a focus on the research and development responsibilities. Lorenzo studied biochemistry at Frankfurt university and holds a PhD from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg.

Head of Trauma & Orthopedic Surgery at the Helios Clinic Hildesheim | Co-Founder

Burkhard has been fascinated by phages since the 1990s. During his time at the Medical University Hanover, Burkhard saw numerous patients with a long history of suffering from antibiotics failure or intolerance to antibiotics. After meeting a colleague from Georgia, Burkhard saw a chance to help patients with severe cases of bacterial infections.

Since the late 1990s, Burkhard has been one of the very few physicians in Germany treating a small number of cases per year under the Helsinki declaration. His personal treatment expertise is highly relevant today and forms a basis for PhagoMed’s research and development program. Burkhard is currently the Head of the Trauma and Orthopedic surgery department at the Helios clinic Hildesheim as well as a co-founder of PhagoMed. Burkhard studied medicine at Hanover Medical School (MHH) as well as the Mayo Clinic in the US. He remains part of the teaching staff of Hanover Medical School.

Andrej is a leading expert on the field of periprosthetic joint and other implant-associated infections. He is currently the Head of the interdisciplinary Center for Septic Surgery at the Charité in Berlin, Germany. During the past decade he has devoted his research to improving the treatment pathway for patients suffering from these – often devastating – implant-related infections. Together with his PRO-IMPLANT Foundation Andrej created a decision tree for the best surgical and antibiotic treatment, based on the specifics of the biofilm infection, severity, patient conditions and microbiological analyses.

Since 2015 Andrej has also turned his attention towards new modes of action for treating periprosthetic joint infections – to reduce the duration of hospital stay, prevent antimicrobial resistance and address potential side effects of antibiotics. His research group at the Charité in Berlin has shown very promising results for how phages and antibiotics can synergistically interact to improve outcomes in periprosthetic infections. Andrej holds an M.D. from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

He completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in the US and subsequently created research groups at the University Hospital Basel and Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2007 he became Assistant Professor for Infectious Diseases. His current research group in Berlin consists of 16 scientists, working on novel diagnostic and treatment strategies against biofilms. He authored 155 peer-reviewed publications and 6 book chapters. In 2017, he received the Charnley Award by the British Orthopaedic Society for his scientific achievements.

Susana has spent more than fifteen years researching multi-drug resistant bacteria. During this time she held various Post-Doc positions in Portugal and the US. Her studies focused on understanding the mechanisms of drug resistance formation in pathogens such as S. aureus. Susana also held the position of an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at Marymount Manhattan College. Susana holds a PhD in Biology as well as a Graduate degree in Applied Chemistry/Biotechnology from the New University of Lisbon.

Téa has spent most of her professional life in the phage field.For twelve years Téa worked at the Eliava Institute in Tbilisi where –after earning her PhD – she was involved in researching and developing phage therapies. After a number of research projects in Western universities, Téa completed an advanced training in Biosafety and became a Registered Biosafety Professional (RBP). Téa spent the last five years improving the certification levels of
laboratories in Georgia in order to increase the ability of local companies to compete on a global scale.In the summer of 2018, Téa joined PhagoMed in order to reapply her skills and experiences to the phage field. Téa holds a PhD, Masters and Bachelors degree from the University of Tbilisi..

Michele has been studying human pathogenic bacteria for many years – with a particular focus on gram- negative and antibiotic-resistant species. Prior to joining PhagoMed in the summer of 2018, Michele completed his PhD studies at another Austrian biotech company focused on the development of novel therapies to combat multi-drug resistant infections. Michele holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Biotechnology as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology f from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.

Ana is a passionate researcher with a lot of experience in the field of bacterial and viral infections. Ana joined PhagoMed in the summer of 2018 after spending close to seven years at another Austrian biotech company. Ana holds a Master in Biochemistry from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.

Director of the Clinic for Urology, Pediatric Urology and Andrology, Justus Liebig University Giessen

Florian is a leading expert in the field of urological infections. He is currently the Director of the Urological Department at the university clinic Gießen. Over the past decades, Florian has focused his research on urological infections and the optimization of the antibiotics treatment protocols.
His research into antibiotics usage in German hospitals has led to several treatment recommendations that are aimed at reducing the antibiotics prescription rate and lower the resistance pressure for multi-drug resistant pathogens. Florian is part of the team of authors responsible for writing the S3 guidelines for how to treat urological infections. He is committed to further exploring the role phage therapy can play in optimizing the treatment protocols for urological infections. Florian studied medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. After university he joined the urological department of the St. Elisabeth clinic in Straubing. After various research fellowships at microbiological and urological institutes in Germany and UK (Scotland), Florian became a senior physician at the St. Elisabeth clinic. In 2006 he moved to the university clinic Gießen, where he became the Director of the Urological Department a few years ago.

Jörg is a leading microbiologist with a wealth of experience in isolating, characterizing and researching microorganisms. He currently serves as the Scientific Director of the Leibniz-Institute DSMZ, a core research partner for PhagoMed.

Prior to the DSMZ, Jörg led the Department of Biology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich.

Mario is a researcher in the field of the vaginal microbiome. He also has strong expertise in the field of phage therapy and the combination of these two areas makes him a highly valuable advisor and research partner for PhagoMed.

Mario is a microbiology professor at the Department of Diagnostic Sciences at the University Ghent, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, since 2000, where he also completed his PhD as well as his Masters.

Werner has been a serial entrepreneur and leading microbiological researcher for decades. Back in the 1990s, Werner paved the way for modern phage therapy through pioneering the molecular analysis of lytic and bactericidal functions encoded in phage genomes or constructed by recombinant gene technology.

Today, Werner is a key collaboration partner for PhagoMed and our laboratory is co-located with Werner’s company BIRD-C.

Greg has a wealth of experience in the phage field. He has dedicated his research to all things “phage” since the late 1990s and has been instrumental in building up a team at the University of Lausanne focusing on the development of phages and some of their lysins for therapeutic purposes. Greg is a key advisor to the team.
Prior to his role at the University of Lausanne, Greg spent more than a decade studyding phages and phage lysins in the US (Rockefeller University, New York) and Switzerland (University of Basel), including during his PhD.

Maia initially trained at the Eliava Institute in Georgia. Over the past decade, Maia has worked in Belgium, where she has been instrumental in researching pathways for phage therapy that comply with Western regulations. Her papers on Quality-controlled phage production processes have become reference articles for all phage companies and she is core advisor to PhagoMed.

Benjamin is a seasoned strategy consultant who has spent more than a decade advising Healthcare companies and governments. As part of his work, Benjamin has authored reports on antimicrobial resistance for the German government. Benjamin studied Chemistry in Munich, Berkeley and Osaka and holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the Technical University of Munich.

About Us

PhagoMed was founded based on the belief that the accelerating antibiotics crisis requires decisive action and that phages are among our best bets of defusing this existential crisis for modern medicine. The company is the brainchild of three very different individuals, who share this belief.